UW News

February 4, 2014

News Digest: Campuswide big-data event, Paws-on Science deadline, Green Seed Fund awards

Words data, science and related terms spelled out in colorsUW president, provost headline campuswide data science event Friday
University of Washington leaders will celebrate a pair of recent grants to support interdisciplinary data science research and collaboration at an all-campus event 2-5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, in Mary Gates Hall. Faculty and students from all disciplines who are interested in using big data in their research are invited.

UW President Michael K. Young, Provost Ana Mari Cauce and others will speak, followed by a networking session with a collection of more than 125 posters highlighting data-science activities across campus. The speakers will explain two recent grants: a $37.8 million data science award shared among the UW, the University of California, Berkeley, and New York University, and a $2.8 million National Science Foundation award to establish an interdisciplinary graduate program in data science at the UW.

UW speakers will also share more details about a new data science studio set to open in fall 2014. This will be a physical space on campus staffed by a team of data science researchers and practitioners. Students, faculty and post-doctoral researchers can gain expertise in big data through workshops, training events and collaborative startup projects, then take the knowledge back to their departments and labs. Pilot projects include visualizing data from new oceanographic sensors, analyzing the text from patent applications to predict quality and creating an infrastructure to improve analysis of astronomy images.

The speakers Friday will begin at 2 p.m. in the Mary Gates Auditorium (room 389), and the poster session is 3-5 p.m. in the Mary Gates Commons.

Participant deadline Feb. 14 for Paws-on Science
Paws-on Science is now just a few months away and researchers wanting to take part have until Feb. 14 to register.

Paws-on Science at the Pacific Science Center, this year April 4-6, is a partnership between the UW and the science center that introduces local families to research at the UW in fun and accessible ways.  The weekend event is an opportunity to engage the public, including tomorrow’s researchers, and to build pride in the UW.  During the past four years of Paws-on Science, more than 1,100 UW scientists have shared their work through hands-on activities with close to 47,000 adults and children.

Researchers can sign up as individuals or as part of a team, and participation might fulfill outreach activities required by some grants. For more information, contact McCayla Butler at mcbutler@uw.edu or 206-543-1867.

Green Seed Fund awards $279,000 to initial slate of projects
The first five projects to receive Green Seed Funds will share nearly $279,000 in funding. The fund, sponsored by UW Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability office, awards money to projects that advance sustainable research and contribute to campus sustainability goals.

Project teams will begin work this month and report progress to the Green Seed Fund committee mid-year. Most teams expect to complete work by early 2015.